


Omelette du Marigold

by Kablob, mylordshesacactus



Series: Happy Huntress Cinematic Universe [6]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Backstory, Equally Trans Female Author, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Pre-Canon, Pre-Transition Trans Female Character, Trans Female Character, poutine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:41:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25384000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kablob/pseuds/Kablob, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mylordshesacactus/pseuds/mylordshesacactus
Summary: And Marian, poor soul, was troubled in mind,For the absence of her friend;With finger in eye, she often did cry,And his person did much commend.Perplexed and vexed, and troubled in mind,She dressed herself like a page,And ranged the wood to find Robin Hood,The bravest of men in that age.Or: to make an omelette, you've got to break an egg's shell.
Series: Happy Huntress Cinematic Universe [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1646263
Comments: 97
Kudos: 234





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> CW for misgendering, self-misgendering, and a disregard for personal safety bordering on suicidal ideation.

“Oh,” said Fiona. “This kid’s gonna get mugged.”

Robyn, taking a sip of badly-needed coffee, could not disagree.

“What’s he  _ doing?” _ muttered Joanna. She squinted through the slightly fogged front window of Better Latte Than Never, chewing a large bite of egg on an everything bagel. “Is he  _ drunk?” _

For the past twenty minutes—since the three of them sat down at their usual front-corner table for a quick hot breakfast, in fact—they’d been watching some dumbass in a military officer’s uniform lingering awkwardly near the bus stop. He was wavering, occasionally glancing around with a tense, hunted expression but mostly staring at the route map like it was written in hieroglyphics.

“Little early to be drunk,” Robyn pointed out. It might still be pitch-black out thanks to the wonders of a Solitas winter, but the dull green glow of the cafe’s digital clock read just after nine in the morning.

Fiona frowned and shook her head. “No,” she said. “I don’t think that’s it, he doesn’t  _ look  _ drunk.”

“If he was any better at it I’d say he’s tailing us,” admitted Robyn.

Joanna, sounding unconvinced, still said loyally, “He could be.”

Robyn’s lips twitched. “He hasn’t looked at us once.”

“Maybe he can see us in the reflection off the bus stop?” suggested Fiona as she dug into her French toast.

“Mmm.” Robyn, having polished off the sausages that had come with breakfast, carved off a bit of scrambled egg and frowned slightly as she watched the Atlesian huntsman. That...felt off, somehow. Not with the barely-restrained nervous tension. But...not in trouble, either, at least not immediate. He wasn’t looking over his shoulder enough. He wasn’t running—or rather he wasn’t afraid something was chasing him.

“What’s he  _ looking  _ for?” Joanna wondered.

Fiona tapped some extra cinnamon onto her breakfast and shoved a slightly too large bite into her mouth. “Mmunno,” she muttered, and swallowed. “Has he never used a bus before? He knows you have to get  _ on, _ right?”

“Yeah,” said Joanna, who had finished her bagel and was almost through with her coffee. “Now that you mention it. What’s an Atlas  _ specialist _ doing waiting for the  _ bus?” _

Fiona’s ears twitched in agreement. “Shouldn’t he have a transport?”

“Or an airship,” Joanna agreed. “Oh hey. Maybe this is his bus—nope.”

Fiona’s frown intensified. “Hey, Robyn,” she said slowly. “That’s the third time the A17’s come by this morning. Which means we’ve gone through the whole bus cycle at least...one and a half times? What’s he  _ waiting  _ for?”

“It’s not that hard to read the route map,” Joanna said. “It’s like he’s never seen—”

“He doesn’t know where he is,” Robyn said quietly.

There was silence for a moment as the other two visibly recalibrated their judgement of the situation.

“...I mean, there’s  _ street signs,"  _ Fiona pointed out.

Robyn hummed, set some lien on the table, and picked up her coffee cup as she stood. “Come on. We should talk to him.”

Joanna shot her a skeptical look, but didn’t protest. Fiona also hopped to her feet immediately, though Robyn caught her muttering under her breath.

“...don’t wanna talk to him,  _ you _ go talk to him, it’s  _ raining.” _

Robyn snorted and shot Fiona a slight smile, pulling her coat closer as she shouldered the door of the cafe open. Lowering her voice, she said, “Hey. Forget the uniform. He can’t be that much younger than we are; if it was anyone  _ else  _ standing out in the cold acting like that…”

Fiona nudged her. “I know.”

The kid from Atlas was so engrossed in...his own head, probably…that he didn’t notice them approaching at all. Robyn cleared her throat. “Are you lost?”

He practically jumped out of his skin, whirling to look at Robyn with a wild, almost frenzied expression. One hand went to the hilt of the huge fuckoff sword on his back, but he didn’t draw. “Who—who’s asking?”

Robyn flashed him an easy, relaxing smile, spreading her hands to show she wasn’t going to attack. “Hey, it’s all right. I’m Robyn. This is Joanna and Fiona.” She pointed between the two of them. “And  _ you’re _ not from around here.”

He took half a step back, not relaxing in the slightest. “I _ —none of your business. _ Look, I don’t have any money. What do you want?”

Now that she was closer, Robyn could see the kid’s hair and uniform were distinctly disheveled, far from inspection-ready, and his amber eyes were more than a little bloodshot—

Wait.

Specialist uniform, midnight-blue hair, amber eyes—

Fiona got there half a second faster. “Oh my gods,” she said. “You’re—”

A large truck laid on the horn, the driver shouting angrily as he blew past them, drowning out the rest of Fiona’s sentence.

The Atlas kid—the  _ Marigold  _ kid—heard it, however. “I—that’s  _ not important,  _ okay, I’m not doing anything, just leave me alone!”

“What was that guy even  _ honking  _ at?” Joanna muttered.

Robyn took a careful, deliberate step back, holding up her hands. “All right,” she told the kid. “We’re not trying to bother you. You just looked like you were having some trouble. People look after each other down here. Where are you trying to get to? We can make sure you get on the right bus.”

Marigold did not relax. As a matter of fact, his shoulders got even more tense.

“Doesn’t matter,” he bit out. “I don’t know. I don’t—what do you care? Maybe I don’t tell random strangers on the street what my plans are!”

Robyn shrugged with a carelessness she didn’t feel. “Well,” she pointed out. “If an Atlas military huntsman dies five minutes after I leave him, I’ll be doing the paperwork for the next five  _ years.” _

“She hates paperwork,” Joanna added helpfully.

The laugh that got sent a chill up Robyn’s spine. There was no humor in it; but there was very little bitterness, either. The sound was  _ empty. _

“Don’t worry,” he said, voice hollow. “I’m not a military huntsman.”

“Right.” Robyn crossed her arms, quirking an eyebrow. “An Atlas  _ specialist, _ my  _ apologies.” _

_ “I’m not anything, all right!” _

His voice cracked halfway through. Robyn was so startled by the outburst she very nearly took a step back to give him more space. As it was, she dropped all humor from her expression.

“...Marigold,” she asked softly, “what  _ happened?” _

He stared at the three of them for a moment longer, chest heaving, and then—

Vanished.

Fiona blinked and took a step back. “What—”

Something unseen shouldered past Robyn, and puddles splashed down the street as Marigold sprinted away—not actually very stealthily, despite the Semblance.

Beside her, Fiona and Joanna instinctively started to pursue, but Robyn held out a hand to stop them. “Wait. Maybe three armed strangers  _ shouldn’t  _ chase a young man alone in a strange city down the backstreets with no explanation?”

There was a pause.

“Oh,” Fiona said, with an expression on her face for which the most appropriate word was, unfortunately, sheepish. “Right. Yeah.”

Joanna sighed. “Still, though…”

Robyn couldn’t disagree. “Look, that’s an incredibly powerful Semblance he’s got, he can’t keep it up forever. We’ll find him again before long, and  _ then  _ we’ll talk.”

* * *

It was cold, probably.

Marigold had stopped noticing much more than that hours ago. He’d stopped caring a lot sooner.

It was probably cold, if you moved any further from the heating grid; that much he was pretty certain of, because he was tucked between two coils and roasting on both sides but still shivering. There was no avoiding that, not when you were soaked through from the rain.

Which—that was his own fault. His Aura was all but done for and he was starting to pay the price. Probably shouldn’t have fallen into old habits when he first got to Mantle, using his Semblance to cry without anyone being able to see. He knew better. He  _ definitely  _ knew better than to be out in the rain with an overtaxed Semblance and no resources, he was just—stupid.

And lost, but what else was new.

He rested his head on his arms and listened to the tether cables of Atlas creak overhead.

He was tired.  _ Well  _ past the point of wanting to cry anymore. His eyes just felt...hot, a little dry, a little swollen. And everything else didn’t feel like much of anything.

Marigold had...walked, when he stopped running. Until it occurred to him that there was no point walking around without a destination in mind or any idea how to get there if he’d had one, at which point he’d just sort of sat down with his back to a chain-link fence, outside some...kind of industrial machine shop’s yard? The gate was padlocked, so maybe they weren’t open today. Or maybe someone would come out to tell him to fuck off any minute, which would also be fine. It was getting pretty hard to care much.

Light footsteps gave a few seconds’ warning that Marigold didn’t even bother looking up for at this point; it was either a Grimm, or it wasn’t. Then the fence flexed at his back and someone settled on the pavement a foot or so away.

“Hey,” she said.

It was one of the three women from earlier. The—faunus whose name he’d already forgotten. Fucking _ typical,  _ Marigold...

“Are you hungry? I got you something.”

He  _ was  _ hungry, actually, probably. He hadn’t eaten since before...before. He glanced up out of his fortress of arms to see her better. She raised her hand, reached toward it with the other—

Her palm shimmered in pale gold, and she—there was no other word for it, she  _ pulled  _ a paper carton out of her hand.

Huh.

“...Nice,” he said. “What else you got in there?”

Her smile became more of a smirk for a moment. “Oh, you know...stuff. Here.” She passed the paper carton over and he took it gingerly.

“...Why would you put  _ gravy  _ on  _ fries?” _

She laughed. “Authentic Mantle street food, kid.” She plucked a fry from the carton and ate it, which...probably meant it was safe, and frankly, he was at the point where threat assessments took a backseat to raw calories. Or...anything else, for that matter.

Five minutes later when he came up for air, he belatedly remembered to say, “Thanks.”

“Fiona,” said—presumably—Fiona. She held out a hand, which he nearly accepted before sending it a sudden wary look. She definitely smirked at that. “Thyme. And it doesn’t work on  _ people!” _

“Says you!”

Fiona rolled her eyes and nodded down the street, to where her...friends, companions, gang members, whatever from earlier were paying a street vendor. The blonde lifted a hand in greeting as they approached.

“You were following me,” said Marigold, aware that he should be a lot more concerned by that fact. On principle he freed his sword and put it between his knees, but on some level he knew he probably wouldn’t use it.

Fiona shook her head, but it was the ringleader from earlier who answered.

“Not following,” she corrected, sitting down on his other side and digging through the paper bag of whatever the hell gravy fries were until she produced four more paper cartons and began distributing them. Marigold was not too proud to accept seconds; this time he’d seen them handed over and sealed, to boot, so he couldn’t even justify beating himself up for it. “But I’m glad we ran into you again. You had us worried this morning.”

Before he could call her out on that obvious bullshit—sure, an armed trio of blatantly-not-the-police just  _ happened  _ to run into the same stranger twice on opposite ends of the city, because they oh-so-conveniently didn’t have anywhere else to be or anything better to do—the woman flipped out her scroll and handed it over.

“Oh,” he said after a split second, feeling a little stupid. The Huntress license was kind of an obvious answer to  _ that  _ mystery. And was also a  _ pretty  _ decent indicator that they probably weren’t being nice because they were planning to dump his body in a gutter somewhere. Then, after another second, “Oh. You’re—you’re  _ Robyn Hill. _ I remember you, how did—”

Robyn smiled and held a hand out for her scroll back, which he hurried to give her, and Robyn punched him lightly in the shoulder.

“How’s that blood sugar treating you, kid?” she grinned.

Marigold offered a weak grin in return. He had no idea how he hadn’t recognized her, it wasn’t exactly like it had been long. Robyn had been one of the superstars in her time at the Academy; she’d gotten her clock cleaned in the Vytal Festival but everyone agreed that it was just bad luck in the matchup. In the field, and when she’d been working with her full team, she was a force of nature.

“You were only a few years ahead of me,” he pointed out.  _ “Kid _ ’s a little much.”

From Robyn’s other side, the third woman—Joan? Joanne? Joanna? That was it—swallowed her fries loudly. “Yeah, well, you just have that energy.”

“Be nice,” chided Fiona, who was quickly becoming Marigold’s favorite.

“Greenleaf?” Marigold guessed, leaning forward to get a better look at Joanna. She tossed him a casual salute. “Right. Well...you know who I am.”

One of Robyn’s eyebrows quirked. “We know your name,” she corrected mildly.

These gravy fries were harder to swallow than they looked, apparently.

Robyn politely waited until he cleared the sudden obstruction in his throat before she continued. “So who are you, Marigold? Talk to me.”

“Unless you’ve got something better to do,” added Joanna. He had to snort a little at that.

“Good question,” he muttered. “Not who I was  _ yesterday,  _ that’s for fucking sure.”

Robyn’s expression softened. “Did someone hurt you?”

Ha. Now  _ there’s  _ a loaded question. “I’m fine.”

“Not what I asked, but all right. Something happened, though.”

Yeah. Yeah, something sure happened. He sighed and rubbed at his face with his free hand. “Ugh...long story. The good news is I’m pretty sure I resigned my commission fast enough that they can’t court-martial me for insubordination.”

Fiona’s eyebrow quirked. “Oh, this is gonna be  _ good.” _

“...They told you to do something you knew was wrong,” Robyn said quietly, an understanding look in her lavender eyes.

He shivered, despite the heating grid.

“Yeah. The bad news is I called Ironwood a rat bastard to his face.” And a few other things, actually. Along with some helpful suggestions of where he could go and what he could go do to himself when he got there.

There were a few moments of silence before Joanna wordlessly reached across Robyn’s lap, palm up for a low-five. Bound by the ancient and inviolable Huntsman code of Come On, Don’t Leave Me Hanging, Marigold mustered the energy to meet her halfway.

And—all right, he smiled a little for real this time. It felt good.

Robyn was smiling too—which, wow, it felt weird to notice right now, but she really was  _ the  _ most beautiful woman Marigold had ever met. “You don’t have to give us details if you don’t want to. Believe me, the three of us know  _ exactly  _ what that rat bastard is capable of. But I know you did the right thing, and that takes a lot of courage.”

Marigold glanced away.  _ “Right,  _ the courage to blow up my whole life. I don’t know what...I didn’t have a plan, I didn’t even grab any of my stuff, I just  _ left. _ I don’t have...I’m not—I can’t go back.”

Robyn just...looked at him.

“Can’t as in they wouldn’t have you?” she asked quietly. “Or can’t as in they’d be only too  _ happy _ to take you back?” 

“I…” His throat choked up as he suddenly imagined the reception he’d get at home. He came  _ this  _ close to turning invisible on sheer instinct. “I’m _ not going back there.” _

Robyn squeezed his wrist. “You don’t have to. And you don’t have to do this alone.” She paused. “You should check our profiles on the Atlas Huntsman registry board. Electronic licenses are hard to fake, but it’s not impossible. Keep yourself safe.”

Marigold hugged his knees again. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure. I left, remember? Pretty dramatically? That was _ last night, _ there’s no way they haven’t cut me out of the system. And probably set fire to the computer just in case.”

The three of them gave him very, very flat looks.

“...You’re still a Huntsman,” Robyn said slowly. “Unless you actually had your  _ licensure _ revoked—you didn’t kill anyone, did you?”

Oh.

Right.

Marigold could be very stupid sometimes.

“...Uh, no.” There were a number of people who he would very much like to, but—gods, he was an idiot. 

He fumbled for his scroll; it hadn’t been charged in almost 48 hours, but he also hadn’t been using it much. The battery was dying, not dead—and a few hasty swipes brought up his ID, with the only change being that the white  _ Atlas Military Specialist _ text had been replaced with the encircled staff of the Academy and the label  _ Huntsman Status: Active. _

“I’m—yeah, you’re right. I’m just—I’ve been up all night, okay? Shut up.”

“We’re not laughing at you,” Robyn said, though there was definitely a hint of a smirk. “We’ve all had nights like that before. You need somewhere to stay, though?” He didn’t exactly agree; but apparently reading his hesitation correctly, she continued. “Half the hostels in Mantle would give free lodging for a while to a civilian Huntsman down on his luck. Gods know they don’t get enough of us down here. That should give you a chance to take a few low-level jobs and find your feet. We can give you directions.”

“There’s a thrift store down the road too,” Fiona supplied. “You probably wanna get out of that uniform.”

“I think they can arrest you for wearing it now,” Joanna said disparagingly. “They’re jerks like that.”

“...Thanks,” he whispered. “I…”

“Hey.” Robyn smiled. “You’re gonna be okay.”

That—that was—oh  _ shit,  _ he was crying again. Every part of his body screamed  _ turn invisible turn invisible don’t let them see you never let them see you _ but...he didn’t. For once, he didn’t. He leaned forward to put his face in his hands, and felt Fiona squeeze his shoulder tightly.

“Deep breaths,” Robyn murmured, rubbing gently between his shoulder blades. “You’re okay.”

It didn’t last long—he  _ really  _ didn’t have a lot of juice left in the tank, to be frank. When he was ready, he looked up at Robyn and managed to flash what he hoped was a wry grin while rubbing his eyes dry. “So...do you three always go around rescuing damsels in distress?”

That got charmed laughs out of all three of them. “It’s in the job description,” Robyn teased. “Robyn Hill, professional damsel-rescuer. I think you’re my first actual  _ princess,  _ though, Marigold. Castle in the clouds and everything.”

Marigold laughed too, now, and the weird tingle he was feeling was  definitely  from the cold. “Ex-princess, I think. If that’s something you can be.”

“You can be whatever you want to be,” Robyn said, and her voice was warm enough to melt the Solitas wastes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may notice this fic has been added to the HHCU series! We hesitated to include it at first, because our headcanons and interpretations of various relationships, timeline estimations, etc, have evolved over time.
> 
> However...the core of the HHCU is that they're vague interpretations of/inspired by Robin Hood stories and ideas. The nature of Robin Hood as a mythos is an ever-evolving living folk mythology with like ten thousand equally valid different versions! Timelines shift all the time in Robin Hood stories. So, as long as what we're writing is sincere speculation about Happy Huntress backstory, inspired by their allusions, we're not going to worry too much about "disparities" between fics. We really don't think the best option is to keep our interpretation of the characters static just to make the backstories match speculation written before v7 was more than halfway aired!
> 
> So in some of the HHCU fics the Happy Huntresses are in the same year, in others they're not; some will probably focus on one pairing if pairings come up at all, while others are more clearly polycules. In some of them, Robyn is a human-passing faunus; in others it's ambiguous; in many she will be explicitly human. Such is the nature of Robin Hood; the core of the story is more important than the details, and all the versions serve a purpose and have merit. It just depends on the story you're trying to tell and the interpretation that feels best for it.
> 
> Thank you all for reading our fics; we very much hope you continue to enjoy them.


	2. Chapter 2

Marigold took a deep breath.

For good measure, he took another one, then dug out a scrap of paper from his pocket and compared the scrawled chickenscratch address to the numbers on the building. This was _probably_ the right place. It looked run-down enough.

On reflex he moved to straighten his clothes and make...as decent a first impression as was reasonable.

It turned out that effect got ruined when you were wearing a thirdhand hoodie and jeans, but you couldn’t blame him for trying. He’d initially protested when his trio of new friends had offered him money to get clothes, but uh...yeah, Atlas really _would_ arrest him for impersonating a military officer if he walked around in that uniform.

So he’d accepted the five thousand without more than token protest and some mumbled thanks and bought whatever he could find that was cheapest and durable. He now owned one (1) thick red hooded sweatshirt, some jeans that were only slightly beaten-up already, the undershirt he’d been wearing, a pack of underwear, a toothbrush, a single spare set of wool socks, a shitty duffel bag to shove it all in, and absolutely nothing else. He’d kept the shoes, obviously—there was no thrift store in the world that you could walk out of with anything better than Atlas-issue military footwear, not for less than five thousand lien.

At least the jackboots were only _literal_ now.

Actually he had the uniform still too, technically. It wasn’t like he had anywhere to put it. Could have shoved it in a trash can, but it was still high-quality clothing if nothing else. Marigold figured he’d keep it for now. It wasn’t like there was a shortage of room in the duffel bag.

There’d been about a hundred and fifty lien left over. He’d grabbed one of the hundred-lien mini notebooks near the register and a single cheap pen, both of which were shoved deep in the hoodie’s pockets at the moment. He...had his reasons.

A gust of wind reminded him exactly how cheap his hoodie had been, so he figured he should stop delaying and go inside already.

The man at the desk’s fuzzy white ears flicked up at the sound of the door opening, followed by his eyes a moment later. “Hello, can _—whoa.”_

May instinctively went tense before remembering that, oh yeah, he had a huge fuckoff sword strapped to his back.

“Right,” he said. “Um. Sorry.”

How the hell do you start this kind of conversation? _Hi, I’m the pampered only child of one of the top five wealthiest families in Atlas but can you let me stay here for free for an undisclosed period of time? I’d rather not explain why._

Several long, awkward seconds passed before Marigold abruptly fumbled for his scroll.

The front desk guy’s hand casually slipped under the desk, which was understandable. Marigold winced and brought his scroll out a little more slowly, and the guy relaxed.

“Uh,” said Marigold, opening his ID and putting it on the desk before backing up several steps. “So, um, I’m a Huntsman?” Somehow it came out phrased as a question.

The receptionist peered at it, looked back up at Marigold dubiously, looked back at the ID, and then looked back up with a _slightly less_ dubious expression. “Yeah, looks like you are. Can I help you, Mister, uh...Marigold?”

There were several layers to how he asked that question, and by far the most obvious was the unspoken addendum: Y _ou can’t possibly be one of_ those _Marigolds, can you?_

Since the honest answer was both yes and no, Marigold decided to ignore it for now. “Yeah, um...this is a little awkward, but I’m, uh, new in town? And I need a place to stay, and I’ve got some jobs lined up so I’ll be able to pay soon, but I can’t, uh...pay up front right now. But I will! As soon as I can! If that’s, uh, something you’re okay with?”

The man stared at him for a long moment, still looking somewhat bewildered, and Marigold _tried_ not to let his heart race. After all, he reminded himself cheerfully, Robyn had said _half_ the hostels in Mantle would put him up, so he could always just try another…

“...We don’t get a lot of Huntsmen around here,” the man said. He didn’t _look_ like he was about to throw him out on his ass, which Marigold supposed he was something of an expert at detecting by this point.

“Yeah,” he said, throat suddenly dry. “That’s...why I came.”

Another weighted pause, and then the receptionist smiled.

“Tell you what. I’ll let you run up a tab as long as you want, if you let me take a closer look at that sweet sword you’ve got there.”

Marigold blinked. “Wh—I mean, sure!” He swung it carefully around and tried to find a way to place it on the desk, which did not work due to the size ratio of sword to desk. The guy didn’t seem to mind too much, though; he wasn’t a Huntsman, and clearly didn’t know much about what he was seeing anyway.

The guy gave a low whistle and ran the pad of his thumb along the flat of the blade. “Nice! Must be a hell of a Dust hog, though.”

Marigold’s eyes widened slightly.

He hadn’t even thought of that, because he was an idiot. He’d been fighting for years with a weapon that was essentially a zweihander infused with Dust by a pair of sawed-off shotguns at the crossguard. One pull of that trigger burned more Dust than some entire Academy teams used in a round _combined._ That was...never a problem before. He’d never in his _life_ had to pay for his own Dust. Oh gods. Things cost money.

Fuck.

Marigold forced a grin for the sake of the guy, who he really badly needed to make a good impression on. “Only if things get so bad I have to actually shoot it,” he said with his best attempt at a cocky head-toss. “If I need anything but the blade to take care of Grimm, it’s a bad day, you know?”

Oh, on a list of “the biggest lies he’d ever told in his life”...at least he wasn’t _bad_ with the sword alone.

The guy hadn’t noticed anything off, at least. He pulled a set of keys off the back wall and placed them on the desk.

“It’s five hundred lien a night, pay it when you can,” he said kindly. “You’ll be the second room on the left, just up the stairs. Your locker’s number fifteen. Good luck out there, Huntsman, we need you.”

Marigold tried not to jump with excitement and mostly failed. “Oh! Thank you, so much, really! This is…”

Okay. He was running on fumes here and had had a _hell_ of an emotional rollercoaster but he was _not_ about to start sobbing at everybody who was nice to him. In public. There must be a bathroom around here somewhere...

“Don’t mention it—”

From somewhere down the street came the large bang of a transformer blowing. The buzzing light overhead wavered dramatically, but after a brief moment of trepidation it returned to normal.

“...Does that happen often?”

The man laughed. “Welcome to Mantle.”

* * *

This would be _so_ much easier if he could just shoot the little bastards.

The rats, Marigold clarified to himself as he impaled yet another bone-studded red-eyed demon rodent to the concrete. The rats, not the kids. The _kids_ were great.

A previously unnoticed Bandirat became noticed by launching itself off a boiler and trying to bite Marigold’s ear off.

 _“Fucker!”_ he snapped, flailing his sword reflexively and only managing to check the impulse when it occurred to him that swinging a sword at his own head was a bad idea. Instead he managed to grab the Bandirat by the scruff and tear it off with a horrifying sound and a flare of Aura. He flung it against a wall and smashed it with the flat of the sword. “That’s what I _thought._ Fucking asshole bitchrodents…”

He’d had a long few weeks. Murdering his way through several dozen demon rats in the basement of an elementary school was cathartic.

Something squeaked grumpily in a dark corner. Marigold threw a plastic bucket at it and stabbed it when it ran.

A long pause. Silence.

He took a deep breath and let it out.

Honestly, as jobs went, this wasn’t the worst of them. An independent Huntsman in Mantle had no end of possible missions, but most of them were _well_ beyond the capabilities of anyone to handle alone. So it was mostly stuff like this. Low-level Grimm, security, a body to fill out a patrol, someone with a big stick to make a transport driver feel safer.

They didn’t pay well, but they also weren’t usually very hard. And as the weeks went on, Marigold had started looking for jobs that were more important over ones that might be slightly more lucrative.

And a Bandirat infestation under a school was insanely dangerous. Most of the time they weren’t Huntsman-level threats; people could handle Bandirats on their own with a crowbar or a heavy pot. But left unchecked they’d multiply, and given a powerful enough trigger—intense stress or fear or sadness—they might very well all swarm at once, and then people _would_ die. Kids, in this case. Elementary school kids, who were _super_ well-known for their _emotional regulation._

He shook Grimm dust off his sword and climbed the creaky stairs, banging a pattern on the door.

“It’s safe!” he shouted. “That’s the last of them.”

He jumped so violently he nearly fell back down the stairs when muffled cheers broke out on the other side of the door. And...echoing through the vents, because sound travelled through those, apparently, which was the kind of thing Marigold would have liked to be briefed on before spending an hour and forty-five minutes cussing out a swarm of Grimm rats. Too late now. Fuck.

The locks were undone on the other side—big, clunky old things that were more rust than lock at this point—and the basement door was hauled open for him.

The principal’s sideburns looked even less impressed than he did, glaring across the hallway with his arms crossed. His assistant, however—an older woman with a single silver loop in one ear—appeared to have more important things to worry about. She gripped Marigold’s hand between both of hers and shook it emphatically.

 _“Thank_ you,” she breathed. “We’ve had that listing up for three weeks, it wasn’t so many at first but if you hadn’t contacted us I don’t know what we would have…”

“It’s fine,” he told her. “Really. I’m just glad I saw it.”

It was _really_ easy for listings to disappear in Mantle. As far as Marigold had been able to determine, the only Huntsmen down here were...him, and Robyn Hill’s little group. Gods knew he’d never seen any _other_ claims on the Mantle job boards, in among the sea of requests for help. On _very_ rare occasions the military would do a few and make a big deal about it, so they could, you know, convince themselves that they actually gave a shit.

“It isn’t much,” the assistant principal said, an apology thick in her voice as she pressed an envelope of cash into his hand—small bills, really obviously the result of passing around a hat somewhere. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Marigold hurried to assure her. “It’s more than enough, I’m just happy to help. I need to get going, but you can always contact me directly if something like this happens again, all right?”

He still wasn’t used to the way people looked at him here. They were always so happy to see him that it became a kind of...desperation.

She hadn’t been lying; the payment for this job _wasn’t_ much. As soon as he could duck out of sight, though, he tucked it in a pocket and pulled out his cheap little notebook.

> _Fiona Thyme - 1000_
> 
> _Joanna Greenleaf - 2000_
> 
> _Robyn Hill - 2000_
> 
> _Hostel -_ ~~_9000_ _8000_~~ _6500_
> 
> _Capri Cornflower - 750_
> 
> _Nyanza Astrapia - 100_
> 
> _Ralph - 25_
> 
> _Rocky Shamm- 400_

It wasn’t much, the lien from this job. Not that that mattered— _someone_ had to clear those things out, it was an awful tragedy in the making that didn’t have to happen. But even with that being said—the money wasn’t nothing, either. Allowing for the need to do things like eat...he probably couldn’t afford to pay off his entire debt to the hostel, but he could square most of it off now. And hopefully start paying back some of the other debts he’d accrued since showing up.

He didn’t really think people like Robyn and Fiona and the kind-eyed bus driver who’d spotted him a single coin for bus fare expected to be paid back. That was...the point.

His whole _life_ he’d benefited from accepting money he hadn’t earned from people who’d actually worked for it. He wasn’t too proud to admit he needed the help, right now. He wasn’t _too good_ for charity. But these were loans. He wasn’t _taking_ anymore.

Clearing out to try to fit in another low-level Grimm job was easier said than done. Not because of the logistics, exactly, but because—

An excited but carefully polite tap at his elbow made him look down.

“Sorry,” squeaked the little boy who’d gotten his attention. “But um, are you really a Huntsman? Like a real one?”

“With a license and everything?” clarified his friend, a dark-haired girl with a twitching primate tail. 

Marigold gave an awkward grin. “Uh,” he said, pulling out his scroll and activating the ID. “Yeah, here.”

“Whoooooa,” chorused the entire crown of several dozen elementary schoolers.

“My uncle killed a Grimm once!” called one of them. “He used a pickaxe! Like _this!”_

 _“Ow!”_ complained the kid next to her.

“That’d do it,” agreed Marigold. “What kind of Grimm?”

“Umm…” The kid scrunched up her forehead. “I think it was a Creep. Or maybe a Beowolf! Or an Ursa!”

“Your uncle didn’t kill an _Ursa,”_ one of the other kids said disdainfully.

“If you’re a Huntsman where’s your uniform?” piped up another voice from the back. “‘Cause my cousin has a friend who’s a Huntress and she says you gotta wear the uniform so civil aliens can tell who you are if they need help.”

Marigold considered that for a second.

“Civilians,” he guessed. “Yeah, it’s important for civilians to be able to find Huntsmen when they need one. But you know, Huntsmen are civilians too. Civilian just means anyone who’s not in the military, and most Huntsmen and Huntresses aren’t in the military. That’s mostly something they do in Atlas, and some of us decide we could do more good down here. With you guys.”

This caused an explosion of fascinated, scandalized discussion between the students as Marigold tried to pick his way through the crowd and out the door before he was flagged to be hunted for sport by the PTA for radicalizing their kids.

And teaching them a phenomenal array of curse words. No extra charge.

He managed to give satisfying non-answers to several very delicate questions about military structure and the place of Huntsmen in other kingdoms before one kid who apparently didn’t have a head for politics jumped the tracks.

“What’s the biggest Grimm you’ve ever killed?”

Marigold grinned in the voice’s direction. “A Megoliath,” he called. “Fourth year field mission.”

 _“That’s so fucking cool!”_ called the voice of a small child that Marigold desperately hoped had already known the word “fuck” two hours ago or, at least, did not have parents capable of finding out where he lived.

“Have you ever fought two Grimm at the _same time?!”_

 _“Two?_ I just fought forty-seven, remember?”

“Ooooh, right.”

“Is your sword also a gun?”

“It’s actually four guns, if you want to get technical.”

“Why’s your hair so long?” asked one young faunus boy, shaggy lupine ears pricked forward with interest. “Are you a girl?”

A strange jolt went from the bottom of his stomach up, like his lungs were trying to escape out of his mouth. “Haha,” he said, “I’ve just been growing it out like this, that’s all. I think it’s nice! Boys can have long hair too, you know.”

Was it getting warm in here? Marigold really hoped he hadn’t broken something in the basement.

“Hey!” His voice cut through the murmur of the kids discussing that amongst themselves. “You kids wanna see something cool?”

They all looked at him, and he grinned. “Or, you know... _not_ see it.”

To him, nothing changed but for a faint shimmer of Aura over his body. The first time he’d used his semblance was—was something he didn’t like to think about actually, but he hadn’t realized he’d done it until later. 

He vanished into thin air, and the room _detonated_ into chaos.

* * *

“I’m just saying it doesn’t make sense.”

Robyn closed her eyes and counted slowly backwards from ten.

“It makes perfect sense,” Joanna argued. “It’d be ridiculous to charge more for a slice of cheese that probably costs the restaurant four lien. Tops.”

“I’m not saying they should,” said Fiona. “All I’m saying is—”

“Joanna,” Robyn asked the sky, or rather the bulk of Atlas blocking it out. “Should I push you both in front of a bus—”

“If hamburgers and cheeseburgers cost the exact same amount,” Fiona plowed through, “Then _why_ are they separate menu items?”

“—or should I just walk in front of a transport and hope the brakes fail?”

“They’re separate menu items because one of them has cheese,” said Joanna patiently.

In a novel change of pace, it wasn’t raining this evening. Robyn’s trio had taken care of a Centinel nest under the exterior wall and made a _friendly_ appearance at the front office of a notoriously corrupt housing complex in lower Mantle, and with nothing remaining to do before the next morning they were making their gradual way back to the apartment.

“Cheese is just another optional topping!” Fiona threw her hands in the air. “Just sell a burger and you can say whether you want cheese or not! There’s no separate listing for onionburgers or tomatoburgers, or—” 

“I’m about to try one or the other,” continued Robyn. “Anything is better than this, Joanna.”

Joanna patted Robyn’s shoulder. “It’s fine,” she assured her. “Any minute now she’ll understand that she’s wrong. It’s easier to just say ‘a hamburger with everything’ than go through every possible combination of toppings.”

“Just say ‘I’d like a burger with everything, hold the cheese’! They don’t need to be listed separately, they’re the _same thing!”_

“I _actively_ want to die,” Robyn informed them both. “Fiona. Joanna. It’s been…” She checked the time on her scroll. “Thirty-seven minutes.”

Which was thirty-six and a half more minutes than any reasonable person could possibly justify dedicating to this argument. Maybe if she moved fast enough she could shoot them.

“...only reason anyone distinguishes between hamburgers and cheeseburgers is that they’ve always done it, but it’s an arbitrary—” 

_“Marigold!”_ Robyn exclaimed with perhaps more enthusiasm than she otherwise might have. Not that she wasn’t happy to see him, she just wasn’t….you know, _manic._

Marigold half-raised a hand in greeting, grinning shyly. “Hey, guys. Girls, I mean.”

Honestly...he looked good. Better. The Atlas uniform didn’t suit _anyone,_ but Marigold especially looked like he’d come alive after ditching it. He was all layered cotton, a rough brown jacket shrugged over a worn sweatshirt and grey cargo pants that _almost_ concealed the telltale Atlesian boots. He’d picked up a neckerchief at some point against the cold.

So in actual fact he looked kind of like a dumpster full of discard clothing had thrown up on him with no regard to aesthetic whatsoever—but he’d lost the hollow, haunted look. His shoulders were loose and steady, he held his head up, his eyes were bright and alive and threw golden glints in the light of the streetlamps.

“Nice to see you’re still alive,” Robyn said as he joined them. “What’ve you been up to?”

“Oh, not much,” he said, nudging the young faunus girl who was walking with him. “Just getting the kid here home from trivia team practice.”

The kid blushed at finding herself in a _group_ of Huntresses. She really was young, thirteen or fourteen at most; a reindeer faunus with only a single prong on her thick, velvet-lined antlers as she shyly accepted Robyn’s offered handshake.

“It’s an honor to meet you, ma’am,” she mumbled. “Olive Tarandus. Mr. Marigold has a contract with the afterschool groups since we don’t have busses.”

It was a common problem. The schools in Mantle were devastatingly underfunded; the few that actually had any kind of reliable bus system _certainly_ didn’t have the spare resources to ferry kids home following their extracurriculars. Most of the time they had to rely on safety in numbers, which only lasted as long as it took for _most_ of the kids to get home. Getting a Huntsman on reserve would be a huge weight off the shoulders of a few dozen parents in the district.

And while, yes, it was a reliable position suited for a single Huntsman who didn’t have backup—there were _much_ more lucrative jobs Marigold could be taking instead. They weren’t hard to find, either. Robyn’s estimation rose instantly.

“How about you three?” Marigold smirked at her. “Rescued any more lost princesses lately?”

Robyn returned the smirk. “You’re the only one, I’m afraid.”

The light changed; now walking in the same direction, the three of them started off down the street with Marigold and Olive at their heels.

“Hey Marigold,” Fiona interjected. “Do you agree that—”  
  
“Brothers save us,” Robyn muttered.

“—cheeseburgers and hamburgers shouldn’t be separate menu items?”

Marigold glanced between them. “Uh…”

“Well,” Olive said reasonably, “if you think about it, it’s just a burger with cheese on it.”

Fiona threw her hands up even as Joanna groaned. _“Thank you!_ This kid is my new favorite, Robyn.”

Olive, apparently not knowing what to say to that, just blushed deeper.

“Thanks,” she muttered. Then, “Uh, this is my building. Thank you!” she added to Marigold, shaking his hand with adorable formality. “The whole afterschool group really appreciates you. Um, all of you. For the—work you do. Sorry, I’m leaving.”

“Happy to help,” Robyn called after her as she bolted up the stairs and fumbled with a key to get in the front door. “It’s what Huntsmen and Huntresses are here for.”

“What she said,” agreed Marigold.

Once the kid was safely inside, they kept walking. Marigold hesitated for a second until Robyn casually waved him along, at which point the thrilled surprise on his face warmed something in her chest.

“She wasn’t kidding,” Robyn told him. “You mean a lot to those kids and their families.”

Marigold shrugged, self-conscious. “I just like jobs that mean something.”

Robyn tried not to look too obviously proud. Marigold was a grown adult who’d made this decision with intent, and likely wouldn’t appreciate it.

“So,” she asked. Honestly, she was surprised to have run into him. That he was taking low-paying jobs that were desperately needed over more lucrative military bounties explained why he’d stuck around so long; she and her girls saw his mark every so often on the listing boards, claiming missions, and they’d wondered what the hell Marigold was still doing in Mantle after two months. Still, by now he had to have nearly saved up enough to get somewhere that would be kinder to him. “Where are you thinking you’ll go next?”

He tilted his head slightly, shoving a chunk of navy-blue hair out of his face. He was growing it out. Intentionally, too, the ends had been trimmed. It suited him, honestly.

“I mean,” he said, a little confused. “I was actually planning to get a cheeseburger, but—”

“Hamburger with cheese,” insisted Fiona.

“But I don’t want to have an _existential crisis_ right now, so I’ll probably get a curry,” he finished, voice aggressively cheerful and studiously ignoring Fiona. Robyn, who really was six seconds from lovingly and respectfully shoving Fiona in a duffel bag, felt her opinion of him rise even more.

She was about to clarify when Marigold’s eyes suddenly widened.

“Oh!” he exclaimed. “I almost forgot. Since I ran into you—” He patted his pockets and pulled out an envelope of lien, most of which he pulled out. “I never got a chance to pay you back.”

“Hey, no,” Joanna protested instinctively. Fiona held her hands up and took a step back, shaking her head in firm agreement.

“Don’t even bother,” Robyn told him sternly. “You don’t owe us for a favor you never asked for. It was just poutine, anyway. Not exactly breaking the bank.”

Marigold set his delicate jaw firmly. “No,” he said. “I know lunch was a gift, and I’m not tacky enough to make you let me pay for it. The five thousand lien to get street clothes was a _loan,_ though. That’s too much for me to just accept. Robyn,” he said, cutting her off as she opened her mouth to protest more. “Please? This is important to me.”

“...Okay,” she relented. She took the offered lien without further protest. 

A disinherited Marigold alone in Mantle, stubbornly trying to square his debts...she wasn’t cruel enough to refuse that. Not with the weight it clearly carried. 

“When you’ve paid off all your debts,” she said casually, splitting the five thousand lien between the three of them. “Where to then? You’d probably do well in Vale. Or...I hear no one cares much about surnames, once you hit Vacuo.”

Marigold looked at her like _she’d_ just snapped her fingers and vanished into thin air and back. “Do you…want me to leave?”

...Oh.

_Oh._

Robyn could be very stupid sometimes.

Before she could stop being stupid, Joanna interjected. “Course not. People just don’t usually want to stay.”

Fiona glanced up at the oppressive monolith hovering over their heads. “Especially not when they were already from Atlas.”

Robyn tilted her head slightly, watching Marigold’s reactions very closely. “If what you want is to get away from Atlesian influence,” she said slowly, following Fiona’s look upward toward the absent sky, “leave that past behind you—you’re in the wrong place.” 

“I’m not _running,”_ Marigold insisted as he crossed his arms and glared. “I’m exactly where I want to be, okay? Is that really so hard to believe?”

There was a very, very weighted silence as the street lamp above them burned out.

Joanna glanced up. “I mean…”

“I thought you guys _liked_ Mantle?”

“We do!” Fiona insisted. “It’s just, you know, we’re _from_ here.”

“We’re not trying to talk you into leaving,” Robyn said softly. “But...people without ties here don’t normally want to _stay.”_

Marigold’s response was immediate. “I _am_ tied to Mantle.”

For a moment Robyn’s eyebrows twitched upward; and then she understood, and tried and failed to keep her heartbreak off her face.

“...You don’t have anything to make amends for,” she said. “You’re not responsible for the crimes of your family. You know that, don’t you?”

Marigold scuffed an obnoxiously shiny boot against the pavement and muttered, “It’s not like that. It—I’m not here because I think I _have_ to be, all right? I’m not trying to be some kind of hero or whatever. I just...want to be here. Live here. I don’t know. Be a person. This is where I want to be.”

Robyn’s chest felt tight. Unseen at Marigold’s back, Joanna was smiling softly; Fiona bounced once on the balls of her feet, her hands making a short abortive gesture before she clasped them firmly behind her back so that she couldn’t impulsively hug him.

Swallowing the painful lump in her throat, Robyn lightly clapped Marigold on one shoulder. _He gets it. He actually understands—_

“Then this is where you belong,” she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every single pronoun in this chapter was like fingernails on a blackboard honestly. May will figure some stuff out soon and then we will finally know peace. In the meantime, Alex is trans and has a permit.


	3. Chapter 3

The eerie scarlet streetlights faded back to normal. The wailing perimeter-breach alarm continued for several seconds, until it too finally turned off.

Robyn waited for several more before she finally relaxed.

“Well done, ladies,” she called as the final bisected Centinel dissolved into dust. As an afterthought she tossed a wink over her shoulder and added, “...Princess.”

Marigold flashed a wide grin, managing to rip his sword out of the street on the second try.

“Not the most practical weapon,” Joanna observed.

Marigold made a face. She was right, and they all knew it; that was an _Academy_ weapon, big and inflexible and expensive as all hell. But it was _his,_ and Robyn shot her partner a look and a quick head-shake.

Apparently unnecessarily. “I’ve been thinking about making some modifications,” Marigold agreed. “It’s just taking a while to save up for. I need to pay for, like...rent.”

Fiona extended her staff with a casual flick of the wrist, planting one bladed end on the sidewalk. “Have you ever considered,” she began with a flourish toward the weapon. Robyn elbowed her in the shoulder.

She’d been _aiming_ for the ribs, but Fiona was short.

“What?” she demanded.

“Ease into it,” Robyn said under her breath. Fiona muttered darkly under her breath and elbowed Robyn back, considerably harder and with much better aim. _“Ow!_ Little—”

Fiona ducked under her retaliatory swipe, counting on the growing crowd of civilians to keep Robyn from tackling her in public. There would be a reckoning for that one.

Marigold kicked one of the now-empty boreholes, frowning as he looked between the Centinel burrow and the distant perimeter wall.

“Yeah,” Robyn said, quietly. “They _shouldn’t_ be able to get this far. The Atlesian commissioners don’t acknowledge it, but half the problems with water mains and ‘decaying’ building foundations in Mantle are because of old subterranean Grimm tunnels. The grid isn’t advanced enough to do any real tracking unless they actually get into the sewer systems, so all but a tiny fraction of the alerts don’t even make the Huntsman boards.”

“We know they’re there,” translated Marigold. “But if we can’t find them and we can’t get to them, it’s better not to mention it and risk freaking people out.”

“Most of them will never break through,” Joanna said. “But they could really pop up anywhere.”

“Comforting thought!” Fiona added.

Marigold clearly was going native to some degree, because right now he was engaging in one of Mantle’s favorite pastimes: glaring up at the sky. “Yeah, the only subterranean vermin you’ve got to worry about burrowing under the ground in Atlas is the military.”

Fiona held out a hand without looking in his direction. Marigold immediately provided the requested low-five.

In the meantime, however, he was looking at the Centinel wreckage again. After a minute he nudged a splintered bit of asphalt into the burrow, listening to it clatter off the permafrost as it fell away. “And this isn’t even a major street, so like as not we’ll probably be dead before they bother to fix it.”

 _“Honestly.”_ Robyn shot Atlas a venomous look, then shook her head sharply. “One of these days, Joanna. They can’t hide those budgetary records forever. If they keep _stonewalling_ me at the requisitions office—”

“They can’t _actually_ ban you from city council meetings if you haven’t broken the rules,” Fiona pointed out.

Marigold and Joanna gave identical, derisive shakes of the head.

“The City Council’s a sham,” said Marigold at the exact moment Joanna said, “Not that banning you could make them listen to you _less.”_

Marigold gave a bitter, appreciative huff of laughter.

“There’s private companies,” he pointed out. “Construction crews looking for extra cash. None of these businesses could afford their rates, but together they might be able to fund just the repairs of the damaged sections. The company would just have to get clearance from the city, and you _know_ the city commissioners will jump at any chance to get things fixed without actually having to send tax money somewhere other than their own—what?”

Not bothering to hide her smile, Robyn exchanged a long look with Fiona and Joanna. Joanna shot her a thumbs-up; Fiona shot her a pointed look and jabbed a finger at her own staff in a very clear message of _hey, I tried to do it five minutes ago._

Robyn cleared her throat. “So, Marigold,” she said casually. “The three of us have been talking it over, and we like the way you coordinate with our team.”

It had just been information-sharing, at first. Robyn had been more shaken than she wanted to let on, that she’d somehow _not known_ about that Bandirat infestation a few months back. 

Once the line of communication was open...well, sometimes the three of them needed some extra muscle, or a stealth fighter, or a scout—especially when Grimm inevitably _did_ get into the sewers. It had started out with the three of them occasionally calling Marigold in for help, and Marigold occasionally checking in with them about important jobs that a single Huntsman couldn’t handle alone. Then that had shifted to Marigold calling them in for _support_ and sticking the mission out alongside them…

He ran a hand through his hair, which he wore in a ponytail these days. “Thanks.”

“Thanks for being there,” Robyn countered. “We like you. I trust you to have my team’s back and I trust you to tell us what you need so we can have yours. Listen. I’m just going to be honest with you. We’ve spent the past month running coordinated missions every few days. You communicate with us about all your solo missions and frankly we’re starting to feel the difference when we can’t get ahold of you for a bigger job. We were wondering if you’d be interested in making that coordination more official.”

Marigold blinked, a slow, hesitant smile starting to spread across his face. “Are you...asking me to join your girl gang?”

Joanna laughed. Robyn flashed him a grin and spread her hands.

“Well we’ve got a slot open, Princess.”

“Teams of four, you know?” Fiona added.

Robyn slung an arm around Fiona’s shoulders as she continued. “We’re not trying to cross any boundaries,” she promised. “I’m not suggesting...I say jump you say how high, or anything. I know you have your own place now, we wouldn’t try to make you move into our spare room or anything, but...we’d be honored to have you.”

Marigold’s face went through several complicated emotions in quick succession. “You...would? I mean, I—I’m flattered, but I didn’t think you’d want a...someone like me.”

Joanna snorted. “You think that matters to us? You’re as Atlesian as my right foot.”

“You won’t offend us by saying no,” Robyn assured him as gently as she could. “I know you may not be eager to put yourself in another team dynamic when you’ve just barely gotten your freedom. Or you may just not want to work with us that closely, that’s fine. We wanted you to know you had the option, but nothing has to—” 

“Robyn,” Marigold interrupted politely. “You haven’t seen my apartment. There’s one bare lightbulb and you can touch both walls at the same time. I live in a closet. Did you say you have a _spare room?”_

* * *

Joanna took a long, casual sip of her beer.

“Don’t turn around,” she warned Robyn in an undertone.

Marigold tried not to stiffen too obviously. “Trouble?”

Fiona leaned out from the table to peer around Robyn, ignoring Joanna kicking her under the table. After a moment, her ears dropped into a vaguely annoyed, resigned position. She sighed. In answer to Robyn’s raised eyebrow, she confirmed, “Yeah. He’s back.”

“Who…?” Marigold reached instinctively for a sword hilt, feeling the brief disorientation of finding the slim, lightweight crossbow-staff instead. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation—it was a good weapon, more versatile, infinitely less expensive to maintain, and less of an obnoxious eye-catcher on the street. It was just going to take some getting used to.

Robyn, rubbing her temple with the fingers of one hand, waved off his tension with the other. “No danger,” she muttered. “He’s just…”

_“The heroes of the hour!”_

“...a lot,” Fiona finished, folding her arms on the table and slamming her face down into them.

The young man gesticulating enthusiastically over the heads of the crowd...did not, in fact, look like much of a threat. He didn’t seem to be unpopular, either; _everyone_ in the Blue Boarbatusk had been thrilled to see them tonight. Marigold had never actually had anyone insist on buying him a drink before. It was...nice. 

It was Robyn’s influence, of course. This was _her_ local bar, and everyone here knew it. So anyone who came in with Robyn was by default a friend. That was...also unfamiliar. And also nice.

“For too long Atlas has had a monopoly on fine Huntsmen and Huntresses, but _not anymore!”_ The man swept an arm toward their table; Marigold waved awkwardly, and the other three visibly tried to fuse with the table. “Exposing corruption in Mantle’s Atlas-run city council may only be the _start_ of the fight, but it’s still a victory! This is proof that Atlas propaganda about ‘the economy’ is just that! All Mantle needs is a little real infrastructure investment, and—” 

“Get off the table, Forest,” said Capri Cornflower, voice flat, as she passed him without breaking stride. While Forest pouted behind her and tried to climb down from the table without breaking it or himself, Capri rolled her eyes warmly and started setting down baskets of food. “All right, I’ve got you ladies’ orders here—oh! Sorry, Marigold. I keep forgetting you’re on the team now. Good to have you too.”

“It’s fine.” Marigold laughed a little under his breath even as goosebumps raised on the back of his neck. “I’ve been called worse.”

Ha. Yeah. Oh right, food. Capri’s fish and chips were quickly becoming one of Marigold’s favorite comforts in Mantle.

“The wicked Tammy Hall didn’t know what hit her! _She_ thought the people of Mantle would tolerate her blatant embezzlement forever, but Robyn and her Happy Huntresses proved her wrong!”

 _And also me,_ Marigold added silently. He'd helped. A little. Turned out it was pretty easy to steal financial records to leak to the press when Robyn was in the front raising hell. Even _without_ the invisibility. Not to imply that the invisibility hadn't helped, though.

“Why does he keep trying to make that a thing,” Fiona muttered under her breath.

“I think it already is,” Joanna said despondently.

“That’s our name now,” sighed Robyn. “I heard it in a corner store yesterday. There’s no containing it anymore.”

Joanna patted Marigold on the shoulder. “Sorry, man.”

Marigold rolled his eyes. “Hey, I think it’s kinda sweet.”

It was. It was...you know, funny, and not the kind of thing it was worth getting upset about. But it was a stupid, dorky nickname and there was something _nice_ about that. Not an Academy-style team name, and not a military unit, just...a name. A gift from the community. It was something he could actually feel good about being included in. Definitely not worth correcting the “huntress” bit.

Besides. If they were mistaking him for a huntress, it meant they didn’t recognize him on sight. It meant he really had left the family name behind.

“Oh gods, he’s coming over,” Fiona whispered under her breath.

“Be _nice,”_ Robyn teased.

“The people of Mantle cannot thank you enough!” Forest’s voice was entirely too loud and entirely too close behind him, and Marigold started to see the others’ point. “My contributions may be humble, but if there’s anything I can do to help the cause, all you lovely ladies need to do is ask!”

Marigold very nearly choked on the fish he was chewing, and grabbed his water to wash it down.

“Thank you, Forest,” Robyn said, showing off her skill as a leader and public speaker by managing to sound only _slightly_ put out. “We’ll let you know if there’s anything.”

Having recovered from his near-death experience, Marigold groaned and put his hand against his forehead. “Okay, seriously, why do people keep doing that? Is it the hair?”

Robyn looked up over the rim of her own glass and gave a noncommittal hum.

* * *

It was a night like any other, Marigold thought.

Robyn and Joanna were sitting at the dinner table, engrossed in planning their patrol routes for the next week. Fiona was getting increasingly passive-aggressive about clearing the table for dinner. Outside there was still daylight at ten in the evening, and for once the sky was clear if you didn’t count the looming bulk of their oppressors.

And Marigold was making dinner, like normal.

There really was no reason she should be so nervous.

“...want to focus on Sector Nine, with the layoffs there’s bound to be a spike in Grimm activity.”

“Yeah. But it might be worth it to split our forces, monitor the wall as well; otherwise we risk being overwhelmed…”

She tried very hard to focus on chopping vegetables. That was simple. That was easy. She could do that in her sleep, except if she said that out loud the others would start teasing her about how it seemed like she only slept during the _actual_ night of a Solitas summer, and she’d get defensive and tease them back but it’d all be in good fun and…

She beheaded a large bunch of scallions with considerably more force than necessary.

“Timing will be a problem,” Robyn commented. Marigold wasn’t following the conversation enough to know what the hell she was talking about anymore. “We’ll have to—”

Fiona cut in, and there was a clatter as she shoved something off the table to make room for plates. “Speaking of timing—”

Marigold lost track of the conversation again. 

She had this planned. She was going to make dinner—egg fried rice was always a favorite with the girls, now that Marigold had informed them you were supposed to wash rice before you cooked it. And then she would sit down and...tell them some things. That she’d figured out recently. About herself. Easy.

Gods, she was an idiot.

Twenty-two years was a long, long time to spend so far up her own ass that she couldn’t even see that—well, she was thinking of herself as _she_ now, right?

Oh fuck. She was thinking of herself as _she_.

Okay. Ingredients in the wok. Focus. Don’t think about the crushing weight of self-expression. Easy.

Don’t think about what _they_ would have done if you’d told them this.

...Easy.

This somehow felt more intimidating than telling Ironwood to jump up his own ass and die had been, before she’d done it. Which was _stupid._ It’s—it’s Robyn and Fiona and Joanna, for fucks sake, what was she scared of?

Actually, she wasn’t going to follow that train of thought.

Shit. Shit the food was almost done. Maybe she could...overdo it a little, just to stall for time—

 _No,_ what the hell was wrong with her?! She had _standards,_ thank you. She didn’t overcook food. Why did she make fried rice? Why didn’t she make a souffle? Those take hours!

“Dinner’s ready,” she heard herself call in a voice that she increasingly hated.

Over at the dinner table—just a few feet away in their tiny apartment, but feeling like it might as well be in Kuo Kuana—Fiona slammed her hand down and sucked up Robyn’s map, to general laughter that Marigold found herself taking part in.

This was easy. This was easy.

She brought the bowl over and sat it down on the table, spooning out servings for everyone.

Easy.

“Oh, gods, that’s amazing,” Fiona muttered around a mouthful of rice.

“As usual,” Robyn added, with an easy smile in Marigold’s general direction. “Be careful, or you’ll end up getting tapped to cater one of these fundraisers.”

“There’s something here about geese and golden eggs,” commented Joanna, spearing a bit of egg on her fork. “Too hungry to think about what it might be, though.”

Robyn rolled her eyes.

Okay, now there was a lull in the conversation. That was her opening.

“We’re still blocking next Saturday off, right?” asked Fiona. “Robyn? We get to go to the miner’s union benefit, right? Please?”

Which she didn’t take.

“Oh no,” said Joanna, grinning. “She’s doing the thing with the ears.”

“That’s very underhanded, Fiona,” said Robyn, eyes twinkling as she reached out to gently ruffle Fiona’s hair. “You know I can’t say no when you do that. And _yes,_ we’re going to the union benefit, I already promised them we’d be there. Especially this year. If there’s going to be a large gathering of miners, especially union reps, in one place in this climate…”

“Oh, right.” Joanna grinned, shoved some rice in her mouth, and swallowed before continuing. “That’s the only reason you want to take a Saturday evening off and go to a party.”

 _“I’d like them to have some Huntresses on hand,”_ finished Robyn with great dignity.

Didn’t take the next one either. What was _wrong_ with her?

“Oh, right.” Joanna set her fork down. “Speaking of extra muscle. A group of parents wanted to talk to me earlier. There’s something fishy going on with the school board funding allocation in the northeast sectors, but they haven’t had any luck speaking at board meetings.”

Robyn nodded seriously. “We’ll back them up. Did they give you their contact information? I can call them during lunch tomorrow, get the basic information and set up a meeting.”

Her rice was almost gone now, and it was because she was a fucking coward, what was _wrong_ with her, there was nothing to be afraid of, they _loved_ her she knew they’d love her no matter what she—

“Hey so uh,” she blurted out. “There’s uh, like. Something I wanted to...talk. About. Tell you about. Uh.”

Fiona swallowed the last of her rice. “Oh, is this that you’re a girl?”

…

“...What.”

Fiona suddenly looked horrified. “Wait, was it not? Shit, I didn’t mean to bring it up if you’re not—”

 _“No that’s exactly what it is,”_ Marigold snapped, “I mean _how the fuck do you know that?”_

They were all looking at her in a very, very sweet and gentle way of calling someone a dumbass.

Joanna was the first to speak up. “You like, jump every time someone calls you anything feminine. It’s really obvious.”

“You’ve basically _made_ me call you Princess this _entire time,”_ Robyn added. “It...all starts to add up.”

Oh, fuck this. Fuck them. Here she’d gone to all this _effort_ and _stress_ and—and these bastards had known before her! “What—I— _you could have told me, you assholes!”_

“...Hey.” Robyn’s smile was enough to melt her heart all over again, like she was still that stupid kid in an Atlesian uniform who somehow thought she was a boy. “I...don’t think we could have, Princess.”

Okay, just because she was _right_ didn’t mean Marigold had to be fucking _happy about it._

She leaned forward and buried her face in her hands. There were—there were so many things she wanted to say.

So, naturally, all she did was start crying.

Fucking typical.

“...Look, we didn’t know for _sure,”_ Fiona said apologetically. “It was just...really obvious?”

 _“You’re not helping,”_ Marigold hissed between her fingers.

“Hey,” Joanna said. “I’m sorry we messed up your whole coming-out thing. I bet you had a whole plan and all.”

“Well I _did_ but I was being a fucking _disaster_ about it, so if anything you jerks saved me!”

Oh.

Oh she shouldn’t have said something that true out loud.

There were two hands patting her back, probably Fiona and Joanna, and that was entirely too familiar, too.

No poutine this time, though.

“...We’re so happy for you,” Robyn said, and her voice was the most soothing thing in the world. Damn her. “I know...I mean, I _don’t_ know, but I realize how hard this must have been to tell us.”

“Fuck _off,_ Robyn,” Marigold moaned.

“I mean it, Princess. We’re here for you. And watching you grow into yourself has been an honor.”

“First time I saw you I thought you were a dumbass,” Fiona supplied, cheerfully.

“...Eh,” Joanna said, and Marigold could _hear_ the grin in her voice. “Pretty sure she still is.”

The hands over her face didn’t just hide her tears. They also hid the way that made her smile.

“...Not to push you,” Robyn started gently. “But is...I know you’ve always hated your first name, I was just wondering if…”

Marigold took a long, deep breath, and let it out slowly before she finally dropped her hands.

“...May.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes this fic used to have four chapters but it's been bothering me since we posted it because I realized it was the one time I broke my rule of writing past the natural endpoint of a story and the pacing was driving me crazy and I couldn't put up with it anymore, so it. Has three now.


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